Listen From Me

I haven’t written any blog post about my stay and experiences in USA other than couple of trips. But this tweet from Gowrav gave me a good topic to write about it.

Day light Saving Time: I won’t discuss about technicalities on why Day light saving time is used. Here is the Wikipedia article regarding it. But for my topic, Let me tell give you some facts

Day light Saving starts during the spring( March 2nd sunday), DST is activated by advancing the clock by one hour, and during autmn (november) the clock are adjusted backward.

w.r.t India Standart Time, West Coast, USA is off by 12.30 hours, but during DST, it is 11.30. This is a huge difference which you will get to know as you read.

The theme of this post is why I like Day Light Saving time in West Coast, USA. Yes, Only in West Coast and not anywhere else, as US has 3 timezones, and the things I would discuss does not apply to other timezones in USA.

Here are the advantages of Day light Saving and these sounds very minute, but makes a big difference:

In our busy lives today, its becoming very hard to find an hour to speak with out family and friends who are more than 10 miles away, Not surprised it is even gouger being here 8000 miles away.

* You can catch up with your family for a longer period than in a No-DST time period. Simple reason is that our lifestyle changes ( yes even though if it is jus an hour ) dramatically with this timezone change, that we end up clashing other person’s busy schedule. For example, I get some relax time after my office from 6-7 PM. However that would be 7.30-8.30 AM in India and is the peak time for people to get ready for their daily work. Even my mom , a housewife, would be busy with her household work. The same time in DST would be 6.30-7.30 AM where people would be relaxed sipping their coffee and catching up with news.

* Day light is MORE: The sunlight is available till 8 PM and in peak until 8.45 PM. We get out of our busy works for the day and seeing the still sunlight we can get outside with friends and family. So we are MORE ACTIVE. Compare to the No-DST, where it gets dark by 4.30 PM, by which you still have 2 hours of your work schedule left. By the time your outside, its completed dark at 5.30-6PM and weather also plays a role here. It is more chilled both in evenings and in the mornings which makes you to hit bed early but never want to wake up even at 9 AM. So we sleep more in Non-DST.

* USA is more scenic with its National Parks and there is more to explore. Park time in DST would be 9AM – 9 PM, which means you go whole 12 hours to EXPLORE MORE with bright sunlight. On the other hand, the parks in No-DST time period follow the 9AM-5 PM schedule, but in mountain areas, the sunlight fades at around 4-5 PM which means we have only 7 hours to explore the place. VERY BAD if we are on travel. Here is the sunset picture I shot at Crater lake around 7-7.30 PM

Crater Lake National Park, Sunset Shot around 7-7.30 PM

* Sunlight and sunset are gorgeous in west coast of USA. With the mild weather with no dramatic changes as in East coast, we have MORE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE PHOTOS of sunset and sunrises, than in No-DST time period as more often than not we end up having very less time for us to reach many of the beautiful sunset points before sunset. My Last trip to Las Vegas where we wanted to capture sunset at valley of fire state park is the best example. You know our sleep timings changes when we are in Vegas :P. After hitting bed at 6 AM (yes its AM) we wanted to reach the Valley of Fire state park before 2-3 PM, but reached there just around 4.50 and 4.5PM on consecutive days. This means the we were already in dark by the time we reached, and this would not be the case during March- November where we have more sunlight and the park closes at 9 PM. I was not disappointed though as I could take this Long Exposure shot with 1% sunlight.

* The only Advantage of a No-DST time period is that the on a day when the transition happens, it would be a 25 HOUR DAY which mean ONE HOURMORE SLEEP, on the other hand during the transition to DST, it would be 23 HOUR DAY which means its ONE HOUR LESS SLEEP. Its more depressing that the transition happens on sunday so we LOSE ONE HOUR OF OUR SUNDAY :(

Now I am sure you are in shock to read 25 Hour day and 23 hour day and I might be sounding Non-Sense. Actually I am not. 2014 Day Light Saving starts on today ( March 9th at 2 AM) which means, that as the clock hits 2 AM, they are fast forwarded to 3 AM. On the other hand, the DST ends on November 2nd at 2 AM, which means when the clock hits 2 AM, they are reversed to 1 AM.

Weird!! Isn’t It?

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If you are follower of my blog, you might have known by now that I am an avid Cricket fan. If you are new person just landed this space, Welcome. Check my “How I grew up with Sachin” post that tells me about Me, Cricket and Sachin.

But little I talked about my new ( nah, Its 4 years old ) passion Photography. Sorry, recently with the easy access of DSLR’s you might have got bored of watching everyone with a DSLR and a Photography website claim to be a Photographer. Let me not comment any further about them, but at the same time let me assure you that I do not belong to the same category and bug everyone with 10000… photos I snap.

A bit of history, My father is very very good at Arts. Be it painting, drawing, interior decoration, decorating house for festivals. He does have amazing crafts skills, and much more. By genes, I tend to be attracted very easily to any form of Arts. On the same note, I wanted cherish some memories when I am with friends for a trekking, or a on a friend’s marriage occasion. The moments, which makes you smile and take you back in time to the same day, and help you relive the same moments. As part of it, I chose the photography as medium of expressing things I see to this world and store them forever.

I started taking photos with Prasanna’s camera ( yes I was not convinced as to which camera should I buy) took may of our trekking photos, captured my two Best friends marriage occasion and many more. In 2011, Time had come to have my own camera and I purchased Cannon SX 230 HS. I used the same camera to capture Prasanna’s wedding too :) Later Moving to California USA, the nature over here impressed me to take up this hobby much more seriously. After the Crater Lake Exploration, I felt that I need to upgrade my tool, and with me working in US, allowed me to afford a DSLR as well as few really good lenses.

OK,you might be thinking, that after my comment against people having DSLR, I might be following their path. Let me clear the few things here. Photography is not about having DSLR, Lenses and so on. Its all about capturing that one moment, and presenting it in a way that brings back the same smile and feel, it was there while you living it in reality. These are just tools which helps you present with a better quality. I wanted to increase the quality of my presentation and hence use these tools. And its not the other way round, where everyone with a DSLR is a best photographer.

Photography is a vast area and there are many things to learn. Ultimately what matters for me is that, how do I apply them to bring the same smile back and become a part of reason for their smile. After having take up this hobby in 4 years, after learning few things in last couple of years, I believe I should reach out to audience to get some valuable feedback as well as to share my work. One such effort to reach out many photography enthusiasts is creation of my Facebook public page Facebook.com/bharath2020photoworks Visit the page to check my work and LIKE if you actually do and share to help me connect more photography enthusiasts.

I know many people hate Facbook, but this was bit easier to start connecting people. If you are against Facebook, You can still see my works here in Flickr @ flickr.com/bharath2020 without any hassle. It actually a much better place viewing photos.

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(This is the last post of my series “How I grew up with Sachin” which I am penning as a tribute to the Little Master Sachin Tendulkar who played his farewell Test match today and who has been and always be an inspiration to many billion people like me)

I wanted to write this post as the last one on 5th day of the match, but the moment came very early than expected. May thoughts were going my mind in last few days on how to end the post. Should I end by remembering his ( Sachin Tendulkar ) best innings he has played. Should I say how he flared well in certain matches, and what does it mean to see him for 17 years. Many things going around remembering him my mind past few days, could not concentrate on my work.

I saw his emotions and tears falling from his eyes while fielding at third man. He kept acknowledging the crowds chanting over there. Tears fell from my eyes when he started his speech, Remembering all of the people who supported and sacrificed their careers for him. Many times in the recent couple of years, we have said, including me, he should retire and not at his best. I know when I said he is not at its best, It means I just don’t want him to end his career on a low. He still was the best compared to other cricketers out there, but I felt he was being the shadow of the Young Sachin we all admired. Now out of all the things we say or speak about, what really admires me about him is his Focus, Dedication and more of all humility.

He has been inspiration to not only cricketers, but to each and every people in this country and around the world. His Focus, dedication, especially when I saw him perform in the World cups after everyone thought he was out of form before the tournament, just inspires me sheer hard work he puts in when it matters the most. I followed the same from him and it has really helped me all the time. No more words can describe this man than this gesture of talking a long walk back to 22 yards for one more time, and touching the pitch where he had spent his 29 years of life and showing his respect. This tells all about him.

I would leave it here and want you to just close your eyes and just hit the PLAY button to listen to his last words of his farewell speech. SACHIN WE MISS YOU!!

THANK YOUSACHIN!!

12.96573777.584724

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( This is second part of the short series ‘’How I grew up with Sachin”. I am penning this as a Tribute from my side to the Little master whom I grew up idolizing him and he has been inspiration for me and billion people like me. Click Here to view the first part of the series )

Missed the Tendulkar v/s Warne: This is the 1998 phase where Tendulkar shifted his target towards Aussies and in particular Shane Warne. However, I felt the impact of that series only in recent times when I was watching through the archives in youtube. Since my major source of cricket news then was through newspapers, the words and numbers over there did not project the right picture of the force and power behind the Tendulkar assault on the aussies. I felt very lucky when I get a chance to view the cricket match on TV even for a few minutes. With many from the family restricting me from watching the game, it was impossible for me to watch Test match cricket whole day. On a Test match day while playing in India, i would eagerly wait to hear the final ring of the school bell and hoping that the play be extended. I would run as soon as i hear the bell ring and would run to home to reach in and around 7-10 minutes , which would have taken a 15 min walk, and all this to watch the final couple of overs of the day. However, I don’t remember a me tasting any success here :(.

During this phase there were lot of matches played against Pakistan in a tri-series at Sharjah. For me India looked me pretty in-consistent, where they do pretty decent in league but succumb to pressure later in the tournament especially against Pakistan. It was very disheartening to see those India Pakistan matches at Sharjah, where Pakistan had many six hitters and India barely had one or two. I felt the pressure of watching those matches, and more on a day of the match that went down the wire. Legs would start shiver, heartbeat rate double, may be all these are signs that indicate when you are deeply involved in the game.

One special thing that comes to my mind on how I followed LIVE matches during that time is the Motorala Pager. It was my Cricinfo then. My cousin had one for himself as he travels a lot and Mobile phones were at its baby steps. As part of their various scheme, they had introduced cricket alerts where they send out a message on every wicket, batsmen scoring 50 or so. I used to get hold of it whenever he came to our house, so that I could tack the score constantly.

My First Wold cup: Doordarshan has showered its blessing finally :), by telecasting India’s 1999 World cup matches LIVE. Well except that they take a break to deliver their daily news, no matter even if India was winning world cup :). This mean that I can watch the match without lying to my aunt as most of the India matches was on weekends. Also the world cup happened in May-June means the schools had just started, So we were let off to watch those matches without any restrictions. The match I remembered the most was against England, for couple of reasons, One the match was played on two days, due to rain on the match day which was continued to second day, and second, India had to win against England to qualify for super sixes, and they won in dramatic fashion on second day from no where.

I could only watch the India Pakistan Super Six match in Bits and pieces as we had a gathering at my sister’s house. India v/s Australia match, where do or die match to enter into Semi Finals, I was shattered to see Tendulkar falling out cheaply in his 4th ball during the run chase and rest of the match was mere formality. In fact most of the matches thereon looked the same and started to have that “Tendulkar OUT, End of the game for India” feeling. It was clear for me the about Australia’s dominance in world cricket at that moment. This world cup also helped me get some insight about the other teams strength and weakness. I loved the game overall and for the listened to radio commentary for the first time to keep up with the Australia- Pakistan WC finals, with me routing for Australia’s win :)

Where there is love, there exist pain: Out of the love for the game, I picked up a hobby of collecting photos by tearing the pictures from old magazines and newspapers and sticking them in a notebook and created collection of photographs. I had over 1000 photos of various cricketers and memorable match moments. In spite of keeping it safe from many people who wanted it to be thrown for various reasons, I lost the book and they were successful in taking it away from me:(. I regret even now for not guarding it with extra safety. I was so let down and disappointed.

This is also the phase where India lost many a times typically in a fashion where Tendulkar falling out cheaply and rest of the team following him like a pack of cards. The real embarrassment would come, when your mom or aunt asked you “Did India win?” “What did you get after watching the whole match?” “Did Sachin Score?”. Its makes even worse when you had watched the match after a lot of fight with mom or aunt, blocking their serials or disobeying their orders to study. I strongly tell them that Winning and losing is a part and parcel of the game, But my age shut them from listening it. All these things only meant that the ‘cricket’ bug had bitten me and it was so deepen that the result of the match had deep impact on my mood for next couple of days.

I would take a break for now and leave you with this special clip 1999 India-Australia World Cup Match. This 4-minute excerpt speaks volumes on Little Master’s Genius and his impact on Indian Cricket. Specifically, Tony Grieg’s reaction to Tendulkar getting out in first over by saying ‘Did India Lost the match’ should summarize it all.

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( Over past few weeks many people have expressed their Tribute to Sachin Tendulkar in many ways. As a tribute to him from my side, I would be penning short stories/moments over next five days describing how I grew up idolizing sachin and his influence in my life at crucial times. I am sure many of you had similar such stories you might have enjoyed while watching Sachin Tendulkar in action in past 25 years. I hope you will enjoy reading these and rejoice your moments of/with Sachin who is playing his ultimate Test match today.)

I was 6 years old. On a sunday evening, my uncle was watching a cricket match, not sure whether it was a test match or ODI. At that time I had no idea about cricket. Sachin had only completed 3 years of international cricket, but was yet to blossom. All I remember was that I asked my Uncle ‘ Is Kapil Dev still playing in the match?” that was all my knowledge about cricket.

City Life & Cricket: 4 years later: After moving from a village to Bangalore for my schooling. I started to hear a lot of cricket noise around me and no wonder as it was the world cup season. Every morning before the classes commenced, my classmates used to gather around and discuss about yesterdays match. Me with poor english speaking skills, I was kind of being shy to enter the discussion as I was low in confidence to speak, and to speak about the topic which I had no idea. I realized only way to make some friends was to learn about cricket. It sounds trivial, but challenging as none of family members were, understandably so, supportive to watching or playing sports. They would think of it as a mere waste of time. Adding to that there was no access to cable television to watch matches, and only source of knowing cricket are through newspapers, and Doordarshan ( which only telecast a couple of hours of a match :( ). [The world was so clean then without Gadgests and Internet :) ]

Fortunately, we were allowed to watch chase of 1996 WC India vs Pakistan Quarter final, due to the added pressure of neighbors talking about them and add to the fact that the match was played in Bangalore. Doordarshan did telecast the match. At that time I know nothing about cricket & its rules and I can only remember two things about the whole match. Name of the Bowler V Prasad which turned out to be my cousin’s name too (simple thing but something we cheered seeing his name on the screen :)) and a burst of crackers at every street in a non-Diwali season, as India won the match.

From the following day I started reading newspaper, well only the sports column, looking out for scores, number of 4s and 6s and read through some match stats before I left home towards school in the morning, so that I have some content to speak about in our pre-class meeting :). This is 1996-98 phase and No wonders, the topic was ‘Sachin Tendulkar’ more often than not, as at this time he was at his peak and truly was a Legend in Making. Since, i only saw cricketers in newspapers, it was hard to remember their face, names initially, but picked it up by following the game much closely than ever-before.

First Full view of Tendulkar Innings: Waiting for my tuition to get over and finally when it happened I ran quickly to my Brother’s clinic, where a television set was placed in his clinic’s waiting room and cricket Match was turned on to keep the waiting patients occupied. First glimpse of Tendulkar, with India’s score at 11/0, just had my heart pounding after a close call for the wicket. Never experience this before, but it is the sign when you have started building love towards the game. I had to quickly figure out how to watch the full run chase. With clinic being closed at 8pm and with no cable television at my aunt’s house, means I had to find my way to my elder aunt’s house on pretext of studying. My aunt slept early as usual, in her bedroom and lucky for me my uncle was interested in watching the match. It was the first time I watched the whole innings with no interruptions, not from the Tv Ads, but from some one else pulling me from watching it. This match was memorable as Sachin Tendulkar was at his best hitting boundaries & sixes and made a blistering 124 in partnership with Ganguly who made 85 to take India to victory without losing any wickets

I questioned to myself, Is this real? Is this how India plays cricket? Are they the strong team out there? I had no clue about the other teams, players, their strengths and weakness. I was wondering a team winning by 10 wickets should be some kind of a record, and moreover I had fallen in love with the little master’s delightful and commanding style of batting. He possessed that extra spark which am sure can attract anybody in this world

Little then I had knew about the opposite team. Moreover, I had no clue whatsoever that Sachin was taking on Henry Olonga, which was termed as a revenge to his celebrations in the previous match after he got tendulkar out cheaply and went on to take 4 wickets in the match to bring victory to his side. This was the final of Sharjah Cup – 1998 against Zimbabwe

With this, I will take a day break and Leave you to enjoy this one of the best Sachin moment, for one more time.

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This is first leg of our Portland Trip. After the Kickoff and Bit of drama, we are all set to explore the greenery in and near Portland.

We got up at around 9 AM after a good sleep, We re-filled our tanks one at 7b petrol and our natural tank at Burger King. After 700 mile drive, we had to do another 77 mile for the actual fun to begin. We left Eugene at 10:30 AM and had three routes to chose to reach Silver Falls State Park which is our first destination

I – 5 N 80 miles 1 hr 37 mins

1-5 N and OR-214 N/Silver Falls Hwy SE 1 hr 38 min

1-5N OR-226E and OR-214 N Silver Falls Hwy SE 1 hr 39 mins

Since the duration and distance was same, we chose to leave the already boring I-5 N highway and head towards the OR-226 E and OR-214 SE Hway. It turned out that we had made a good choice. We had to pass through a few residential and school areas where people strictly follow the Speed limits. The speed limits were as low as 15mph as compared to California’s 25mph at residential / school area. While people in California vary their speeds to +/- 5, here in Oregon they seem to stick to speed limit pretty accurately. Vishnu had to control his instincts of upping the tempo just like anyone who has jus arrived from India would have, after seeing such an empty road.

After few miles, we entered a narrow road with farmlands at both sides of the road and it was Blisss to see such a greenery, especially in USA taking the fact that the perception we Indians have about the USA. This country is not all about the skyscrapers, they do seriously take care of their natural resources such as forests and so on. I was seeing the amount of greenery after long time since I had left Udupi. We wanted to get out of the car, but we cannot stop our vehicles anywhere on the highway apart from designated parking spots or shoulders. But we made a short video while driving through these nice farmlands.

We reached the Silver Falls State park around 1.30 PM and without wasting much time we were into our groove walking along the falls and for the first time I am experiencing the waterfall from its behind. Silver falls state park a.k.a Ten Falls loop hike, where you can hike to see 10 amazing waterfalls where all of them are above 100ft in height, out of which four of them can be experienced by walking behind the waterfalls. The total trail is about 9 mile loopback hike. I don’t have words to explain the amazing experience I had, so here is the video. (Please note that I’m very poor in making video and adding sound effects, so if you don’t like the sound effects, Please mute and watch :) )

Initially we thought we would be starved for food as it need solid 4-5 hours to reach all ten falls, but never felt even after walking around 5 miles with jus a burger in our stomach. We left the park around 7 pm. It is a 1.5 hours journey to Portland from the park. The journey was smooth except at the end where we could not cope up with Oregon low speed limits and few weird / different traffic rules.

If you are going to Oregon after spending good time in Bay area, here are some rules which kinds of surprise you:

The traffic lights are hanged on top with a rope in an unusual position, and we could not see the stop line at all. Me & Vishnu thought we had crossed few red signals and was worried about it. Till now we haven’t got any citation notice from DMV and we think we are good.

U turns are NOT permitted unless or otherwise written as such, which is exactly opposite of California driving rules

Unlike most of the states in US, Gas stations ( In India we call them Petrol Bunks ) does not allow self-serving and on top of it, It is crime if we fill the gas by ourselves. There will be personnel to do the same and I would back this as it would certainly create more jobs.

This one has to be strange of all, at least for me. After all the hiking at waterfalls, we headed to restaurant which was inside the hotel room we checked in. Since my two pair of shoes was filled with dirt , I went bare feet so that I don’t make the floor dirty. But to my surprise, the restaurant waiter did not allow me and on top of that straightaway said that its the law that one cannot walk into restaurant with bare foot. Although I explained my situation, he did not listen to me and I had to walk in wearing the dirt shoes, which seemed fine for him.

Anyways, it was a good first day. We had a plan to goto Portland downtown, but could not as we were a bit tired and had to get back early the next day for another Scenic Drive. More on that in next post.

Before I leave, Here are some of the Pictures captured from my Nikon D7000

This is not all of it. There is still more. I hate to share the photos through Facebook, but I have limited choice and soon will be migrating my photos to Flickr. For now, Here is the link to all Portland pics and my photography portfolio

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It was Memorial day weekend and its been 5 months since I had made a long road trip. Good thing was Vishnu had arrived in Bothell, WA and that is the only state in west coast that I had not been in my 15 months stay.

Initially I was planning to fly to Seattle, but I did not find any place which demanded my attention. As we came close to the long weekend, I finalized the destination to be Portland – The #1 Green City of USA. Its aligns with my wish to make Photography trip as I had never went onto a long trip for Photoshoot with my Nikon DSLR.

As I was trying to know more about Portland, Pradeep, whom I met in twitter contacted me and said he was inspired by my Cross Country scenic drive and wanted a similar kind of tour as he is arriving in San jose for internship. I got to know that he is interested in Photography very much, it took less time to convince me to join him in the trip plan. Great, Vishnu confirmed that he and his friend are ready for the trip while Pradeep was keen get on-road. that makes us four, a perfect number for fun filled scenic tour.

The confirmation of all four turned out be late, which means the flight rates reached sky high and we are left with no option other than drive. Portland is 12 hours from my place and after making all Permutations and combinations, I finally balanced the drive for all of us, which means Me and pradeep would reach to Eugene ( 9 hrs drive from Sunnyvale) while Vishnu and Pradyumna (Vishnu’s new roommate) would drive from Bothell to Eugene ( around 6 hrs drive ).

San Jose –> Eugene Seattle —-> Eugene

Fortunately, I would love the drive than the flight, as I had a bitter experience with flight during my last trip to India. Pradeep had office on Friday, whereas I had holiday and I was waiting for my Camera Lens filters to arrive and later on did pick up some fruits and water from Safeway. Pradeep came to my home at sharp 3 PM, and no matter how many things one would have taken care, there are always few last minute hiccups and purchases which means we had to leave home at 4PM.

At last we were on road only to find ourselves caught in Huge traffic on I-680 Freeway. We drove around 5mph, where as we were expecting to cruise in around 80mph. The traffic was expected during long weekends and it continued for 2 hours and finally we were able to cruise. I took a break from Driving at 9PM and Pradeep after requesting me for a long time, got a chance to accelerate.

Car set to Cruise mode, iPhone tuned to play Kannada songs, We turned out to be AWESOME :)

A bit of DRAMA to wake me up:

I got back to driving after two hours, and on the way I saw few cops, who were highly alert on highways due to long weekend. I heard that Oregon cops are much stricter in speed limits than the California cops. In a sense, they would not tolerate the speed limit if crossed by 10mph, while the California cops generally allow unless you are very unlucky (This is only my observation and may not be true).

Around 2 AM, while I observed one such cop who was dealing with person he had caught, I gradually tried to maintain the speed limit and to mention I was on fast track lane (left most lane). Strangely, as soon as I passed him, I noticed his car with flashy lights turned back on the road. I tried to maintain a vigil on him through rear mirror and was certain he was following me. He had turned off the lights after getting back on road, may be to go unnoticeable.

I was constantly worried of his following and tried to maintain the proposed speed limit but in reality I was driving around 60mph, -5mph than the proposed 65 mph. After following me for 5 min, He switched back his lights, which is an indication to pull over. However, since he did not had the siren, I was not sure if that was directed to me, and took a while before realizing it and few more minutes to find the spot towards right so that I could stop safely.

The cop had parked the car so accurately that his car lights was flashing on the my car mirrors and I was not even able to open my eyes. He politely mentioned that I was stopped for going slow by 5-7 miles less than proposed speed limit on a fast track lane( left most lane). He took the rental car registration and my driving license and went to back to his car. Meanwhile, my I started to shiver, as I was worried about the HUGE fines slapped ( I had already payed 2 fine for different purpose) and what could be black point in the driving history, which would in turn trigger my Auto Insurance rates. After 20 minutes, The cop came and handed over registration card, but that 20 minutes was enough to completely block my mind and by seeing the registration card with the flashy lights all around, I thought he was issuing a Ticket as I found number 280 in large font size. I asked him, could he let me with a warning as I was under-speeding than overspeed, for which he mentioned it was jus a registration card and he did exactly what I am asking for. He was very polite in the whole process and also insisted to exit to next rest area, if I was feeling tired. He asked me about why did I took so long to make a stop after he signaled. I explained that i could not find a right spot which he understood. It is the one thing I admire US police, as they really understand the situation, without blindly slashing fines, even though he could have as per law (again Its my observation and hearing experiences ).

Once I realized I was let out with warning, I was relieved and got back to track and trust me for rest of the trip, I kept a tight check on speed and drove mostly on right most lane (slow lane) even though I did not want to do it. it is just the incident at the back of your mind makes you take such decisions, :)

Finally we reached Eugene at around 2 :30 AM 1.5 hours more than expected time. Vishnu and pradyumna already had a good sleep. We chit chatted for a while and and went asleep.